How to keep your cat happy, safe and stress-free over summer

Is it better to leave your feline friend at home this festive season — or take it with you on holiday?

With more than 50 years' experience working with cats, animal behaviouralist and author Mark Vette says ideally people should take their cat with them if they're going away, which requires specific "conditioning" from a young age.

"Our cat Zen comes with us in the camper and off we go, because he's travel conditioned, taught to go with us, and bonded strongly to us," the 70-year-old told 1News.

"But for those cat owners who have what I call a 'latchkey cat' — which is the cat that comes in and out through the cat door and has a territory — those kind of cats don't like moving territories at all."

Mark says the three most important tools to keep your cat happy over the Christmas break (and beyond) are travel conditioning, no-hunt conditioning and emotional resilience. They're each explored in his book Cat Zen: A Comprehensive Guide to Raising Gentle and Resilient Cats.

"I teach my cats to travel with me, not to hunt, and to be highly emotionally resilient, as those are the things that make a cat a totally different. It's much more like a dog, in a sense.

"They're attached to you. They want to be with you. They travel safely, and confidently when they're out and about, they're well adapted to other cats, dogs and other species."

Mark says travel conditioning teaches cats to feel safe and confident in new environments by gradually pairing crate and harness training with positive experiences, building emotional resilience and reducing territorial stress.

"First thing for people to understand is, don't just think cats are like a dog and you can just throw it in the car and off you go to the beach house or somewhere, and expect it to adapt to a new place easily."

Mark says the best time to teach these skills is during the two- to-seven-week socialisation formative period when they are kittens.

"So making sure that they're well socialised with people, particularly if you're going places where there's going to be other people, then you want them well socialised to people and dogs, if possible.

"Be very careful when you take your cat anywhere as obviously cats are at risk with dogs who are predatory. Take care when you've got a cat out and about with you that you're protecting it from the risk of a predatory dog."

Mark says cats that are able to move territories without stress and just "cruise" when you let them out into a new environment are more emotionally resilient, and happier overall.

"Old Zen here, I take him anywhere and everywhere. We go to the café, go to the beach and he just cruises with me.

"I'm careful with other dogs and so on. But it makes for such an enjoyable cat to have."

Mark says it's great to have a harness-trained cat as this gives you more control - and therefore more opportunities for adventure.

"If you haven't got it a harness, you don't have any control unless you've got your cat well trained. And most people don't have their cat trained," he says.

He said an older cat can also be travel and harness-trained, using a crate up on a stand which the cat sleeps in and is fed in to get used to the feeling of it.

"Of course, ideally, you crate train them as a kitten, and that's really easy then, and harness train them as well."

For people who decide to leave their cat while they go away, Mark says just having an auto feeder, a hope and a prayer is not enough for a territorial latch-key, or indoor cat.

"They're likely to fight in the territory while you're away and there could be other issues such as getting over a fence, getting run over by a car, and all the different things that cats are exposed to such as diseases they can get from fighting with other cats, and injuries.

"So it's important that someone is supervising your cat when you're away, don't just walk away and expect an auto feeder to solve the problem."

He says cats are highly adaptable, and can actually adjust to being left alone for a few days by themselves.

"A couple of days to three days should be fine. Anything over three days, you really should be either putting them in a cattery, or you should be having someone coming in, feeding them, and looking after them. Even more than a couple of days, you should have someone supervising your cat."

Mark says cats are not very good at managing temperature, and stressed the importance of fans, cooling mats, and fresh air available without the cat being able to escape an opened window whether your cat was staying home or coming with you this festive season.

"When you're travelling with them, and then get to the place where you are going to stay, then you really need a 'catio' or a little area that you can contain the cat and keep it inside.

"Even then, most people don't think about it because, in summer, we open the windows and cats can go very quickly. So take a lot of precautions if you're going to be taking it, say to the beach house, or wherever you go. It needs to be the right environment at the other end."

Asked how to get cats to stop attacking the Christmas tree - Mark says from a cat's perspective that is the "perfect mobile play toy".

"I mean, first of all, be sensible about things like glass baubles on the tree, because the cat is going to knock some things off. But normally what I try and do is redirect that play whenever they're around the tree.

"I normally make sure I've got high points away from the tree where they can go up and engage, and that's where I try and play with them, away from the tree. Sometimes I'll block a little bit of the access to the tree."

He said using a command such as a 'psst' sound with your mouth can also work if your cat is doing something inappropriate because cats do it to each other when they tell each other off.

"I don't punish them for that, but that is enough to let them go 'oh, what am I doing wrong?' And then I try and redirect them on to something else."

Mark Vette is the author of Zen: A Comprehensive Guide to Raising Gentle and Resilient Cats (Penguin Random House NZ).